Home PRINT LIMS
The Livestock Sector Unit (LSU) in the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) Directorate of the SADC Secretariat is entrusted to promote regional integration and sustainable livestock development. The Promotion of Regional Integration in the SADC Livestock Sector Project was designed to contribute to achievements of the targets and strategies of the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) of 2004. The mission of the Livestock Unit (LU, run by the FANR Senior Programme Officer Livestock) is to promote regional integration and sustainable livestock production through the co-ordination of animal disease control strategies, human resources development, and livestock products utilisation.
The PRINT team
The PRINT LIMS livestock community:
Livestock sector community at SADC
The RISDP identifies Regional Integration as the key to economic growth and poverty reduction . Hence, the project has as its overall objective, to contribute to poverty reduction through increased productivity and trade flows in the traditional livestock sector of Member States (MS).
The characteristics of the agricultural and livestock sectors vary greatly from one Member State (MS) to another, both regarding natural resources and in economic terms. Most MS do not have well developed commercial farming sectors so that generally sale of livestock remains limited, due to poorly developed markets, lack of marketing infrastructure and information systems.The livestock population in SADC is estimated at 62 million cattle, 32 million sheep, 41 million goats, 10 million pigs, 2 million donkeys and horses and 242 million poultry. Available livestock figures indicate a very low or negative growth for cattle, and modest growth for small ruminants (goats and sheep).
The PRINT Livestock Project in FANR became operational in July 2005. One of the project’s specific objective is to establish a livestock information management system (LIMS) in Animal Production and Health, Marketing and Trade . The generation of up-to-date and reliable information will assist the coordinating role of FANR as well as the development of harmonized policies and strategies in the SADC livestock sector.A full information system has therefore been developed and promoted. It will be used by all SADC Member States (at national level) and at SADC secretariat level (for regional consolidation of relevant information).
Reliable, standardised, essential and targeted Animal Production and Health information publicly available from SADC Member States
- Livestock Information Management System (LIMS)
The system is made of; 1/ harmonized reporting templates organized into 11 Data Modules translated into the three official languages of SADC (English, Portuguese and French), 2/ an application i.e. a relational database (LIMS software in MS Access©) to capture, import or export and transfer data between hierachical levls and partners (since this is a collaborative statistical system), 3/ several networks of professionals forming a livestock community, with firstly the national LIMS task forces and secondly the four regional sub committees of the SADC LTC, 4/ standard operating procedures (using guidelines and manuals for running the LIMS), and 5/ a LIMS WEB Portal (with several WEB 2.0-based collaborative tools) where information and various documents are posted and made accessible.
Sound policies and strategies for the livestock sector within the SADC developed in a participatory manner
- Networking towards definition of Policies and Strategies
PRINT’s main roles in achieving this result are first to provide key information necessary to support policy-makers, develop sound policy relevant to the livestock sector across the region and in member states; second to ensure adequate training of a regional and national cadre of experts; third to promote national networking and increased coordination and cooperation of stakeholders in SADC MS, especially in the provision and use of livestock data; fourth by contracting regional studies, and fifth by facilitating the development and integration of regional networks through such entities as sub-committee meetings or through the organisation of regional workshops supporting these approaches (e.g. Regional agricultural policy, private public partnership PPP). The project does not propose to develop the policies itself.
Viable and operational network of APH professionals (public and private sectors) established in the SADC region
- Capacity building
Quality livestock data collection is dependent on adequately trained personnel in the livestock sector, from the front line to the end user levels, i.e. personnel interacting directly with livestock producers and processors and with other institutional sources of information, or compiling livestock statistics for policy makers. In order to increase capacity and improve quality of data collection, collation and dissemination, the project has put in place a training programme mainly based on the findings of a regional Training Needs Assessment, gradually complemented by findings made during missions in MS. It has two components, namely: grouped training courses, addressing needs that are common to 2-3 Member States;regional training courses , addressing needs that are common to most Member States.
National or regional initiatives in support to APH (animal production and health) and LMT (livestock marketing and trade) appraised in SADC MS
- National and regional studies
The PRINT Livestock Project has funded sub regional and regional studies that contribute to filling information gaps or to demonstrating adapted ways of using information in the livestock sector. In 2006, the analysis of information needs and proposals for studies received from Member States led to the delineation of 4 major clusters of study topics, which have been included in the action plan of PRINT program estimates number 3 and 4 (PE or work plans) as follows.
- CLUSTER 1: Studies on Livestock populations: Methodologies to conduct Livestock Censuses and use their data including by modelling the animal population
- CLUSTER 2: Studies on Livestock populations Dynamics i.e. herds and flocks (large and small ruminants), demographic and production parameters, promote demographic theory and develop toolkits
- CLUSTER 3: Studies on Marketing of Livestock (live animals) and on associated Commodity chains (Meat), development of toolkits to appraise the performance and the characteristics of Value chains
- CLUSTER 4: Studies on Zoning and Compartmentalisation for promoting safe intra regional trade of Livestock and Livestock products.